Just out of college in the late 1970s, Teresa Jordan crisscrossed the rural West, driving over 60,000 miles – from Montana to Texas, Nebraska to Oregon, and North Dakota to the tip of California – in order to interview over 100 women who worked on ranches and in the rodeo. She photographed the women at work and collected rare historic images from their scrapbooks, period newspapers and magazines, and local historical societies. The result is this classic of Western women’s history which is now in a second, updated edition.

“Let Jordan introduce you to these women. You won’t encounter them anywhere else. Every one of them is worth knowing. Their lives are heroic in the most literal sense of the word. Cowgirls are American originals.” – Los Angeles Times “Jordan’s book celebrates the pluck and grit of these overlooked women. Reading about them is as easy as their work is hard.” – Washington Post

Bird, Isabella, A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains, University of Oklahoma Press